Replay of interview 102 with Richard Wiswall from The Organic Business Handbook

Replay of interview 102 with Richard Wiswall from The Organic Business Handbook

Since Ellen Polishuk and I talked about my interviews with Richard Wiswall and Julia Shanks last week I thought I’d replay them for listeners this week. Here’s the amazing Richard Wiswall.

Welcome to today’s episode of the Organic Gardener Podcast! I am thrilled to introduce my guest who has written an amazing book about the business of organic farming that I think will inspire listeners to think about the options for their future. His book starts out peaking interest with a quote from a talk a fellow farmer gave at the New England Vegetable and Fruit conference “Sometimes I think I should have listened to my parents and become a doctor or a lawyer, but you know, I don’t think I could take the pay cut.”

Eventually he would write the Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook: A Complete Guide to Managing Finances, Crops, and Staff – and Making a Profit. This book comes with a companion CD that included templets for creating worksheets, budgets including cash flow projections, and even payroll.

He’s manager of the Cate Farm a family owned and operated organic farm in Central Vermont that includes 22 acres and seven 100-foot long greenhouses of organic vegetables, medicinal herbs, and flowers. Everything they sell is certified organic.

Tell us a little about yourself.

So I’ve been farming full time for about 35 years now. Business has changed over the years, for the first 20 years, I was a highly diversified organic vegetable, herb and flower produce that sold to markets in Central Vermont and through Deep Root Organic Coop, which is a growers coop that sells to Boston and NY to bigger stores.

We had a CSA in the nineties, went to Farmer’s market for 25 years. As I get older I don’t want to work as long and hard as I used to so we no longer do the CSA or Market, even though I’m big fans of both of them.

The other thing I’ve been doing besides farming is to help other farmers trying to help tune up their businesses, because I’ve seen a lot of people after 9-10 years they’re struggle after making long hours, their burning out because the money is not there. I was helping others at conferences etc so I wrote the book because I saw things that came up over and over again that seem to be point needing to be addressed.

In short farmers love doing what they do for all the right reasons, being outside and watching plants grow, and nurturing them and producing delicious nutritious food, what could be better there’s a fundamental satisfaction from that.

I don’t think anybody gets into farming because they want to be a business person, and study business sheets and cash flow projections but ultimately the reality is farming is a business and you have to know the business end of it where you’re not gonna succeed. You can be as ecologically sustainable but if you aren’t economically sustainable that goes out the window because you wont be in business anymore.

I try to get people to spend a little time to work on their business not just in their business, and ask them to set aside 3 hours to do some long range thinking and planning and look at the business and also analyze where the money comes and goes so you can work fewer hours and make more money, ultimately that would be great that’s what a lot of people want.

I think a lot of...

Avsnitt(298)

Bee a part of the solution | The Sustainability Project | Care Bellamy the beekeeping REALTOR®  who “Cares” | Florida

Bee a part of the solution | The Sustainability Project | Care Bellamy the beekeeping REALTOR® who “Cares” | Florida

I’m so excited I have a listener on the line who is going to share a ton of golden seeds! I talked to her before from Florida and she is going to share with us about her Sustainability Project! 1. Tell us a little about yourself. By day, I’m a REALTOR® and beekeeper. I’m also a 3rd generation farmer.  My grandparents owned a 100 acre wheat farm on the prairie in rural Dufresne, Manitoba. My family lived off the land, they grew their food seasonally in a 1 acre vegetable garden. After the local community collectively brought in the fall harvest, they would busily preserve and can their produce for storage in their root cellar. These people were a hardy bunch, they managed to survive the brutually harsh winters with minimal resources using a wood burning stove for heat, crude electric and no running water or indoor plumbing. They kept and cared for livestock and only took what they needed to survive, my ancestors practiced “The Tragedy of the Commons” method.  That’s how they managed to raise a family of 8 in rural Manitoba. And Manitoba is where people go to see the polar bears right? Yes Churchill Manitoba is where the polar bears are. Then you went to the opposite end of the continent practically to Florida. Yes I did I got hired to work for Disney at the Epcot Center back in the early 80s and that’s where I met my husband two weeks later and we’ve been here ever since! That’s so romantic! I always wanted to work for Disney, I tried to get a job or get into art school at the California Institute of Arts in LA. Well, they must have liked me! I managed to beat out 64 other people fro the job! So yay for me! And you worked there for a long time right? Yes 35 years! 2. Tell me about your first gardening experience? We used to visit the farm in the summer time every two years, however my mom! When my mother moved to the big city of Toronto, Ontario, she became a backyard farmer and composter carrying on her family farming tradition. I began helping my mother garden as a young child, she taught me valuable lessons in planting, harvesting and food preservation skills. All these years later I’ve been utilizing this and it’s been working out fantastic for me. Luckily for me, both my parents were award winning gardeners so pulling weeds or fresh carrots comes naturally. So then is it challenging down in Florida? Do you have to learn different practices to grow in that climate? Well, gardening is pretty much the same wherever you go. IT’s just the conditions and the climate. In Florida there is a sandy soil, where my parents lived it was a deep rich soil. You have to plant things things that grow...

7 Jan 201959min

Replay of 2018 Garden Goals Challenge from the Organic Gardener Podcast! 2019 challenge coming VERY SOON!

Replay of 2018 Garden Goals Challenge from the Organic Gardener Podcast! 2019 challenge coming VERY SOON!

I’m so close to wrapping up Free Garden Course.com and I know you are going to love the new one that will take place in a real google classroom! When it’s ready, we’ll have a new 2019 Garden Goals challenge and full color workbook I think you will love! Go ahead and listen to last year’s challenge. There’s a facebook group you can join and even access the google classroom with access code 75yju4. Do you want to save time in your garden? Do you want to grow a garden full of healthy vegetables but feel you don’t have time? Do you struggle to get all the weeds pulled and watering done in the heat of summer when your friends are all headed to the lake? Are you tired of paying the high cost of organic vegetables in the store but struggle to grow your own? Well, our 2018 Garden Goals Challenge will help you find success in your garden journey! Free Garden Course.com So, if you follow me you probably know that I created a Free Garden Course also known as Free Organic Garden Course over Christmas break! Days 1-8 2018GardenGoalsChallenge For the first 8 days of 2018 I’m going to walk you through the steps of planning your garden goals so you are growing awesome nutrient dense vegetables with the least amount of work and time. Now I’m not gonna fool you and say it’s all gonna be easy but I will say it will be worth it.  Day One is all about brainstorming!  You can  download the first 30 days here   while you’re waiting for it to come in the mail.  <img class="size-medium wp-image-4367 aligncenter" src="https://organicgardenerpodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/SailboatPeas-225x300.jpg" alt="boat of peas" width="225" height="300" srcset="https://organicgardenerpodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/SailboatPeas-225x300.jpg 225w,...

3 Jan 201953min

Populärt inom Fritid

somna-med-henrik
uggla-ugglas-podcast
svenska-fpl-podden
rss-frugan-och-back
rss-racevecka
man-i-grupp
roda-vita-rosen
rss-livsreglerna
elbilsveckan
rss-max-tant-med-max-villman
travpodden
billgren-wood
avsuttet-med-elsa-johanna
rss-horrujeje
sexet
rss-algjagare-emellan
heavy-hjelms-bubbla
bosse-bildoktorn-och-hasse-p
rss-vara-klassiker
bilar-med-sladd